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Colin

“ C olin!”

Colin stopped in his tracks, looking behind him to see a lanky figure jumping off a porch and running toward him. He knew those long limbs. “Jamie?”

His old friend barreled into his side, wide mouth forming a beaming smile around what looked like a toothpick between his teeth. His green hair was up in a half ponytail, and he was wearing his characteristic all black.

Colin peered once more over his shoulder to see where exactly Jamie had come from—he didn’t think he recognized the house as that of someone they knew—just as the porch light turned off, a shadow of a person disappearing into the home.

Jamie slapped him on the back before giving him a shake. He’d always been a handsy guy. “Dude. Jay says you’ve been in town forever. Why haven’t you hit me up?”

The best Colin could give him was a shrug.

He’d had other things to worry about, hadn’t he?

His dad’s accusations ran briefly through his mind.

Had he been using his dad’s stroke as an excuse to withdraw?

Or was he still maybe pissed at Jamie for not revealing the big, obvious secret?

You’re a vampire, dude. So’s that creepy boyfriend of yours.

It was hard to say, either way. “Forever’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s been less than a month.”

If Jamie was put off by that vague brush-off, he didn’t show it.

He threw an arm around Colin’s shoulders, leading him back down the sidewalk, and extracted the toothpick from his mouth.

“Sure, sure. What are you up to right now? Wanna grab a drink? I was off to say hey to Monique at the bar. You probably haven’t seen her in ages, huh? ”

Colin almost smiled, charmed in spite of himself by Jamie’s easy enthusiasm.

The guy hadn’t changed much at all since they’d been teens, smoking pilfered cigarettes and trying out fumbling kisses with each other, just to see what it felt like.

He had the same lust for life, the same ease with people.

It was making it hard to hold on to any lingering resentment.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll take a drink.”

“Excellent.” Jamie gave him another enthusiastic shake, ignoring the middle finger Colin waved his way.

They weren’t walking long before Jamie tugged him into a bar on the corner.

It was divey number Colin remembered passing by in high school often enough, though it had had a different name then.

And different artwork, he realized, staring at an impressively lifelike painting of a horse in a tutu hanging directly across from the door.

The place was mostly empty, but that wasn’t surprising.

It was a random Monday, and summertime tended to empty the town of its college-aged drinking population.

Not to mention the elderly snowbirds, the ones who came for the perfect weather in the winter and fled back from whence they’d come once the summer sun started wreaking havoc.

Jamie waltzed up to the bar, arms held up like a track star crossing the finish line. “Monique, my love, you miss me?”

Monique was gorgeous as ever, her dark braids held up with a scarf, her thin but muscled arms crossed as if to fend off Jamie’s enthusiasm, even while the twitch of her lips betrayed her fondness for him.

“Like a hole in the head, baby boy.” She nodded a greeting to Colin, then did a double take.

“I know you!” She pointed a finger. “Cody?”

“Colin,” he corrected, not offended in the slightest. They’d run in mostly different circles in high school, Jamie being their only real common connection, before Colin had severed ties with him.

It was one of his many regrets, in those last days here. Listening to assholes he shouldn’t have, cutting off connections with the people actually worth a damn. It was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.

“Well, I missed you ,” Jamie insisted, ignoring the lukewarm reunion happening in front of him. “Like—like someone with a hole in the head misses an intact skull. I came by just to see you. Picked up this stray on the way. He was—” He turned back to Colin, lifting his brows. “What were you doing?”

Colin shrugged. “Just walking. Wanted some fresh air now that the sun’s gone down. Maybe check out if any of the cafés are hiring.”

Jamie plopped down on one of the barstools, leaning an elbow on the counter. “You looking for work? Monique could give you hours.”

Monique lifted an unimpressed brow. “I could?”

“Yeah. Colin’s decent. I vouch for him.”

She pointed a finger between the two of them. “Weren’t you two make-out buddies in high school? Before you got into the hard stuff.”

Jamie let out a sharp laugh. “First of all, ‘hard stuff,’ great double entendre. High five.” Monique ignored his outstretched hand, and Jamie slapped it on the bar instead. “Second of all, yeah, we were, but I never really revved his engine.” He turned to Colin. “Did I?”

“Nah. To be fair, most usually don’t.”

Colin had realized years ago that sex appealed to him more in theory than in practice.

He didn’t know if that would be the case with everyone, or if he’d feel differently with the right person, but either way, the right person definitely hadn’t come along yet.

The only time he’d felt arousal even close to what other people talked about was while being fed on, and that hadn’t been about the person.

It had been about the bite.

Jamie nodded sagely. “Won’t take it personal, then.”

Jamie never had. Not even when Colin had blown him off at the behest of his shitty boyfriend senior year, too naive to realize the guy’s jealousy was a complete red flag. Jamie had claimed he knew they’d reunite one day—that he’d had a vision of it.

Colin had always thought his friend was messing with him, when he’d claimed one drunken night he could see little glimpses of the future, but now—knowing what he did—Colin wasn’t so sure. Who was to say clairvoyants couldn’t exist, if vampires did?

Monique gave Colin a skeptical once-over. “You wanna bartend, pretty boy?”

Colin shook his head, dropping onto the barstool next to Jamie. “Too much chitchat required, sorry.” Surly baristas were expected and thus tolerated, but drunks always wanted to talk.

“Suit yourself.” She poured them both drinks without asking and told them to take a seat at one of the tables. “I’m doing inventory while it’s slow. I don’t have time for you to distract me.”

Jamie pouted at her before grabbing their beverages, leading Colin to a table a good ways from the bar.

They chatted for a bit, one drink turning into two, then three.

Colin was shocked how easy it was to fall back into a rhythm with him.

He caught Jamie up on his dad—although apparently Jay had filled Jamie in on quite a bit there already—and Jamie explained the current web design project he was working on.

“Where were you coming from?” Colin eventually asked. “I thought your mom’s place was in the opposite direction. Do you live downtown now?”

“Nah. Luc insisted on a place closer to the desert, far away from the unwashed masses. I was tending to some vampire business.”

Colin choked on his sip of whiskey. Jamie had said the last part with the exact same nonchalance he had when discussing web design.

Jamie gave him an enthusiastic pat on the back. “You okay? Not used to the hard stuff anymore? Should I grab you a beer instead?”

“Vampire business?” Colin coughed out.

“Oh, yeah. In regard to that kiddo that we found in Hyde Park.” Jamie’s brow furrowed. “I thought Jay told you about it.”

Colin stared at him. “I didn’t know you knew he told me.”

“Oh, sure.” Jamie seemed to register the shocked expression on Colin’s face for the first time. “Dude. You know I’m a vampire now, right?” He asked it with the casualness of a person asking if a friend knew they were going vegan for a while.

“I suspected. I didn’t know for sure.”

Jamie burst out into a laugh. “Well, shit! I thought you knew. My bad. Who knew Jay could actually keep a secret? Luc is too. He’s my mate.”

“Yeah.” Colin fought the urge to roll his eyes. “That part was a little obvious, yeah? He’s got completely black eyes, Jamie.”

Jamie bobbed his head, tapping at the table. “True, true. Most people just assume he’s some weird goth with contacts. It’s hilarious. Anyway, I was telling the two twin fuckers about it—the kiddo, I mean. Couple vampires live not far from your dad’s place.”

“Twins.” A strange fluttering sensation was taking place in Colin’s stomach, his heart pounding wildly.

Tucson had more vampires. Two of them. “They have mates?” he asked, trying for casual but having no idea if he’d succeeded.

He wasn’t on his first whiskey anymore, and the alcohol was going to his head.

He must have succeeded well enough, because Jamie only shrugged. “Sort of? I guess they’re bonded to each other, like, platonically. Apparently that’s a thing.”

Platonically bonded? Colin had no idea what that would entail, if they’d be as possessive of each other as the other mates he knew seemed to be.

But either way, they needed to feed on humans, didn’t they?

Maybe without a romantic mate, jealousy wouldn’t be an issue at all.

No Alexeis to burst Colin’s blood bubble, as it were.

“And they live on that corner?” he pressed, his fingers clamped down tight on the edge of the table. “The one you came from?”

“Yeah.” Jamie narrowed dark eyes at him. “You worried about your dad? Don’t be. They’re dicks, but they’re not killers.”

Colin mulled it over. What were the chances? This was an opportunity, right? An opportunity for what, he wasn’t exactly sure. But he’d been wanting more, waiting for more, and here was the promise of…more. More vampires if nothing else. Two for the price of one. Who could turn down that offer?

Okay, maybe he really was a little bit tipsy.